


It's So Cold, Am I All Alone?

by Rhythyml



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: 24th Ward (Tokyo Ghoul)-Mentioned, Eto is so young, Gen, Noroi really loves her, Poor Eto, Young Eto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6725911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhythyml/pseuds/Rhythyml
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eto, waiting for a father that never comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's So Cold, Am I All Alone?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elyse Twee](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Elyse+Twee).



She waited so long for the father that never came.

When Eto was old enough to speak her first word (E-to. E-to.), Noroi started teaching her the intricacies of Japanese. Her curiosity was piqued when Noroi gave her a stack of old, tattered children’s books salvaged from some distant place aboveground. She devoured the books like how she consumed ghouls, eagerly. When she was seven, she began asking questions.

It started when she finished a particular book in which the hero of the story rescued the princess from an evil witch and returned home to his family with the princess’ hand in marriage. Eto had paused for a second upon making out the kanji, a thoughtful look on her face. Then she had turned to Noroi, always hovering over her shoulder like a silent ghost.

“You’re my otou-san, right?” she asked, a rare grin spreading across her face. “Kaa-san’s just gone away for a while, hasn’t she? When she comes back, we can have a huge party, just like those heroes did!”

It made perfect sense. But the young Eto, as perceptive as ever, noticed the minute down tilt of Noroi’s stoic face. “What’s wrong, Noroi?”  
“Ah, Eto-chan...” Noroi’s voice was rusty, as though it hadn’t been used in a long time, and hesitant. “I’m not your otou-san.”

Eto twitched, the smile melting away. A moment later it was back, but more desperate and less genuine. “Then you must be taking care of me while otou-san is fighting to defend us from other ghouls! Right, Noroi?”

Not wanting to upset the chid even more, Noroi agreed hastily, not meeting her mismatched eyes. Guilt bloomed in his withered, deadened heart. Lying to a young Eto, full of life and innocence, was hard to stomach, even for a tough ghoul.

Only later did Eto discover what it meant when someone told you something but didn’t look at you.

By then Eto was sterner and bitterer, less convinced the world was good to ghouls like her. Once she had finished her mother’s journal, she closed it and put into her sack of treasured belongings (a hairbrush, a pencil and some books).

“Otou-san and kaa-san aren’t coming are they?” she said in a very quiet tone. It was a statement, not a question. Across the dingy room they had holed up in, Noroi bowed his head then looked her straight in the eyes.

“No, they aren’t.” He answered with an air of finality, remembering the blood caking his friend’s clothing as he handed his only daughter over to Noroi.

It was a terrible thing to say to a girl only ten years old.

“Tell me where otou-san is.”

“No.”

Eto fumed silently for a moment, watching Noroi turn away. She couldn’t believe he would deny her this. She absolutely needed to see him, even if it killed her. With that in mind, she began to hatch a terrible and conniving plan, one that her mentor-guardian would never see coming.

She didn’t even know why she wanted to see her father, not really. She imagined one day meeting him above ground, maybe in a ‘bookstore’ Noroi sometimes told her about, and asking him why. Why did he leave her alone? Why did he run off without kaa-san? Why did he ask Noroi to raise her in the 24th Ward, the ward every ghoul supposedly feared? She had so many questions to ask, and not enough answers. But first, she had to get to her father.

And so, armed with her resolve, she cornered Noroi. Her foster parent balked when she stabbed him with her ukaku. Her foster parent stared at her, resolutely refusing to tell her where her father was, even when she shredded his fingers, pulled out his kakahou and chewed on his kidneys. He could never strike back at her out of paternal love and they both knew it. In the long hours of the 24th Ward’s never changing underground walls, Noroi finally expired, much to Eto’s disappointment. Despite her constantly feeding him ghoul meat so he could regenerate his wounds and freshen up for the next round, Noroi’s body had simply endured too much.

He passed away, but Eto wasn’t done with him yet. She embedded a tentacle in him, and willed her kakuhou to divide into smaller sub-tentacles. Those spread throughout his body and revived his cooling brain. With a start, the male ghoul jolted once, then obediently rose to stand behind her. Eto detached the tentacle, knowing now that Noroi would never disobey another order from her again. With a cruel, sadistic smile, Eto told him to tell her where her father was.

Noroi told her.

Eto peered through the window of Anteiku, a quaint coffee shop, seeing a purple-haired girl serve a customer-both ghouls, her nose told her. She held no interest in them, instead turning her attention to the elderly man standing behind the counter, pouring dark coffee into a paper cup. His face was wrinkled and his hair had been combed back and paled over the years, but Eto could recognize the man even with her eyes closed.

Kuzen Yoshimura, her father.

Eto sent Noroi away for deodorant-he smelled like a corpse- and glanced through the window again, lingering on the purple-haired girl, now talking to her father. Otou-san smiled at the girl and ruffled her hair gently. Eto’s eyes narrowed at the familial gesture. So, he had already moved on, huh? Gotten another daughter, another family, and left her and Noroi behind?

She was brought out of her reverie by the clink of the coffee shop’s door opening. Father stood in the doorway, his eyes smiling at the flustered green-haired girl. “Hello. Would you like to come in?” he asked Eto. “It must be very cold outside, please, come in and have some of our delicious coffee.”

Eto was caught off guard as the warmth of his words washed over her like a tidal wave. Sputtering a polite refusal, she dashed away. Tears stung her green eyes. Her father hadn’t recognized her at all! He’d just thought she was a loiterer of some sort and a potential customer peering into the shop! Running through the influx of people suddenly on the streets, Eto kept on stumbling and bumping into people, imagining for a fanciful moment she could escape from reality. When her legs finally gave out and put her on a sidewalk, she just stared blankly ahead, breaths puffing out of her in white clouds, then the dam of tears broke and she started to wail.

If people stopped in concern, or pointed at her, she didn’t notice as the last, warm part of her soul she had retained throughout her growth in the 24th Ward cracked and shattered into irreparable pieces.

Eto cried her eyes out until she was spent, then she rose from the sidewalk, already knowing her next move. With a frightening snarl on her face, she called Noroi to her side and told him her plan.

So hasty was she to run away from Anteiku, she missed the conversation that took place next.

Yoshimura looked after the girl with strangely familiar hair disappearing into the distance, making no move to pursue her.

“Yoshimura-san?” Touka, bless that girl, questioned.

“Nothing to worry about.” He reassured her. He knew they both could sense that she was a ghoul. But it couldn’t be, anyway. His daughter was undoubtedly still in the 24th Ward with his dear friend. They were perfectly safe, he knew. Noroi would have sent him a message if anything had gone wrong.

Yet unease lingered in his gut. He worried sometimes, lying awake at night and seeing the baby girl he had willingly given up haunting him, asking him why he had left her all alone, without father or mother, only with Noroi to protect her, in one of the most dangerous places in all of Japan save perhaps the CCG Shinigami’s own home. He tried hard to not think about the times where his wife’s ghost appeared. Some things were better left buried.

He resolutely put the image of the fleeing green-haired girl out of his mind. Better to never think of it again than to hope, and dream.

Several wards away, Eto permanently squashed her hopes of a happy family. Her father had obviously moved on. She would do the same, and hope their paths never crossed again. She glanced at her documents she had gotten a certain ghoul to procure for her. All fake, of course, but what really mattered was the name at the top accompanying a photo of her smiling face.

Takatsuki Sen.

No more dreams.


End file.
